Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Paul Ryan Confronts Dissident GOP Conservatives in Offer to Be House Speaker - Asks for party unity as the House’s Freedom Caucus has its own demands for speaker

With less than a sixth of the House’s GOP membership, the Freedom Caucus has clout because it has just enough members to effectively hold veto power in House floor votes, if most Democrats vote in opposition.

In the speaker’s election, for example, where the whole House of Representatives participates in the vote, the Republican nominee would have a hard time winning over a majority of the chamber’s 435 members without the support of a majority of Freedom Caucus members. That is because Democrats typically back their own candidate, meaning the Republican would need to win a majority of the full House—218 votes if all members vote for a specific person—from within the 247-member GOP conference. Losing 40 Republican votes would make it impossible to reach a majority.